The Power of Expectations

photo by orvalrochefort

Whether you think you can or think you can’t— you are right. (Henry Ford)

If talking about students, Henry Ford may also have said, “Whether you think they can, or think they can’t – you are right.” This is as true for “typical” students as it is for students with disabilities. Studies have shown that the expectations of an educator have impact on the performance of students, yet in our world, often people forget this when it comes to a child with a disability.

We see the disability before the child, when really the disability is only a characteristic of that child, not the entire child. The power of expectation cannot be understated.

I often tell parents of my students that its like the fish in the fish tank story. The one where the fish grows to the size of his tank. It’s not true, fish outgrow their tanks all the time, but, children often don’t. Your expectations are the tank surrounding the child, and if you keep the tank small, you’ll get exactly what you are looking for. Raise the expectations up, make them bigger, and you’ll be surprised at what you see.

Often we won’t let our kids show us what they can really do. We fear for their safety, we prevent them from taking risks. They are crying out for a bigger tank, and we as teachers and parents won’t let them. We don’t want them to fail or hurt themselves. The other side of this coin is that if we don’t allow them to fail, we also are keeping them from success.

This morning, I was working with one of my students, a 5 year old, that was just added to my caseload. She is significantly visually impaired, autistic, and unbelievably adorable. She has cerebral palsy that seems to mainly affect her legs. Whenever she misses a drop off that puts her off balance, she immediately goes to all fours and makes these sounds that remind me of the old furbies. “Whoaooo!, woooo!” in this high pitched voice, that sounds just like a Furby. It’s SO cute. She wants to go on all fours when going up stairs and down stairs because she feels more stable, the question I asked myself is, “Does she have to go on all fours, or is it a behavioral habit?” It turns out, with a little prompting and support, our friend can go up the stairs with one hand on a rail. She needs to be reminded not to go down to all fours which is what habit tells her she should do. Now, one session with her won’t fix her situation, but now that I know that ability is in there, you can bet that I will share these higher expectations with everyone that works with her. She’ll grow to fill our fish tank, I’m certain of it.

Can our expectations be too high?? Absolutely, yes. The trouble is, these expectations have to be tempered with realism. A few years ago, I assessed a student that had some major cognitive impairments, was totally blind, and was missing a lot of world concepts. His parents were convinced that he’d grow up and be a sound engineer for Disney. These parents couldn’t see who this kid really was, and the potential he really had without this unrealistic filter clouding their view. Before we can expect real work on the part of the parents, we had to remove this filter, but delicately.

So, how do you adjust these expectations? How do you know when you have high expectations, or that they are too high, or too low? What I have found works for me is coming to the student with an empty mind, free of all expectation. Allow them to show you what they can truly do. For the moment, toss away your emotional connection and bias, and see the child from an objective viewpoint. This is REALLY hard, especially for parents and teachers unused to disability. It is often also hard for teachers that work with disabilities all the time, because there is a tendency to group kids together. A teacher might say, “John is just like this kid Jacob I used to have”, when in fact, John is nothing like Jacob. Sure they may have the same kind of disability and similar personalities, but I’ve yet to see two students that looked identical on paper actually turn out identically in reality. They are always very different, but we have powerful minds that can cover that if we aren’t careful.

So, come to the student with an empty mind, devoid of expectation. Allow yourself to really see what she is doing. Watch with curiosity how she reacts to things in her environment, does she show interest in the same thing as you walk by it every day, can you use that as a teachable moment? Does she seem interested in trying something new? Ask yourself if maybe she can, rather than can’t.

Look at yourself, your reactions, and those of the people she interacts with, and question all of them. Are you appropriately reacting to the child, or your sense of what the child should be? Its delicate, but its very important.

From there, we begin to build on behavior, and uncover ability. This new way of seeing your kids becomes infectious. Without knowing exactly why, other people in her universe will begin to see her as more capable and competent. What they are doing is following your lead. They are unconsciously aligning their expectations with yours. When this happens, you have a wonderful opportunity to really educate.

When you walk around believing in the ability of your students rather than wallowing in their disability, when you start demonstrating success, people want to be a part of it. When everyone is working toward the real growth and potential of your student, you can finally develop his or her full ability.

In my next post I’ll talk about the concept of scaffolding, and shaping behavior, which are magnificent tools for building and creating behavior, and helping it stick. If its not getting too crazy, I’ll also talk about how accommodations should really work for kids with disabilities. Somewhere along the line, we’ll talk about classroom staff, and getting the entire team on board for success. So fun things are coming, if you have anything you’d like to see, leave it in the comments, or email me.

Tell me about your expectations, what success stories do you have? When have you seen the power of expectation at work?

~Mickey

Tags: Child, Disability, Disabled, Education, Teacher